Greetings folks-
This bio is my ultimate confession of procrastination.  I've lurked here
for 5-6 years s best as I can
remember.  A few list members I've met have occasionally and gently
nudged me to subscribe,
but somehow it just never happened.  I was finally shamed into joining
this past weekend when I was
up at LFOD in Hillsboro.  You'll notice it took until today though.

I'm Dave Anderson and I live in Chester, NH with my wife Sue and our
Springer Spaniel Otis.  My son
is early 30s and we now have 2 grandkids- Aaron (10 yesterday) and
Carissa (12 going on 26).  Aaron
is currently a GIT who I get to indoctrinate occasionally.  He's almost
a virgin having only used hand tools
his Dads cordless drill.  Like many here I watched and helped both my
Dad and my Grandfather in the
shop as a kid.  Both were real sticklers on the proper handling and care
of tools. One of my early memories
was Dad punishing me for having failed to sharpen, clean, and oil a hand
plane after using it.  I was banned
from the shop or using tools for 3 weeks.  After HS I went on to train
as an engineer but interrupted my
education by participating in the Great Southeast Asian Wargames as a
Marine grunt.  Motivation for school
was far greater after returning from the service.  Water supply and
sewerage weren't my interest and I gave up
honest engineering employment to become a salesman for the last 30+
years.

My adult woodworking and tool use began like many of you as home
carpentry and maintenance and evolved
into shameful Normite practice.  The epiphany came shortly after I
joined the Guild of NH Woodworkers and
met a guy named John Gunterman.  He kept talking about and showing all
of these old tools and a bunch of
new stuff from a fella up in Warren ME.  Then he compounded the damage
by teaching me to make a spokeshave.
The beast was unleashed.  It started innocently enuf, a plane here, a
shave there, a brace or two......well, you
know the rest of the story. I had a small shop in 1/3 of the basement
with my electron munchers and a slowly
growing col... er assortment of user tools.  After building a
garage/barn 5 years ago SWMBO asked me if I wanted
to perhaps take over the whole basement for my shop.  She didn't need to
ask twice.  I now have both a bench
room and a machine room, and to show my priorities are in order, my
bench room covers 2/3 of the area.

After making several Guntershaves the acceleration over the edge of the
Slippery Slope got worse.  Next thing you
know I'm demoing making various type of hand tools at Wood Days at the
Canterbury Shaker Village each year.
Folks started asking me to sell some of my tools and I kept saying no. 
Finally dawn rose over Marblehead and it
occurred that this could help defray the cost of my tool habit.  I
started selling and named my side business Chester
Toolworks to honor our towns tool heritage. (The Underhill Edge Tool
company first started in Chester)  I now make
and sell marking knives, awls, plane adjusting hammers, and 18th century
style bowsaws (turning saws) and will
introduce some other stuff in the future to prevent boredom.

Gloatimus Maximus:  This past winter my Dad and my uncle each gave me
one of the family tool chests in their
possession along with the contents.  I am now the proud 6th generation
custodian of tools belonging to several
generations of Andersons. There is something special about using a
plane, shave, chisel, or drawknife with which
g-g-g grandpa made his living.  I sometime fantasize I'm that old
shipwright James Draper Anderson working in
Cambridge after he arrived from northern Ireland in 1853.  Sorry, but
I'll never be able to post a gloat better than this.

Notice: I won't say how many shaves, planes, or other tools I've
acquired over the years.  I'm practicing secrecy for
my feeble attempt to keep SWMBO in the dark.  See, you guys taught me
well while I lurked.

7-12-04